Reverse Cronieism

An interesting phenomena has surfaced during this election season. Many candidates, local officials, and local businesses are crying out that "Reverse Cronyism" has taken root in Osceola County. Companies that have benefited from local cronyism are now calling foul because vendors from other areas now seem to enjoy the favor of local governments. "They’re trying to steal our thunder,” noted Billy Newman who owns a contracting firm that has done work in the past for local governments and said that his organization, the Dirt Dobbers, has more than 100 members who are concerned about the trends of reverse cronyism. Mr. Newman's Dirt Dobbers of the 90's came complete with fancy newsletters critical of those in government who sought out value and quality for taxpayers and they helped usher in an era of candidates favorable to their needs. In what some would call political irony, it is these same elected officials that have now found bigger campaign contributions from companies outside of our area in exchanges for a bigger slice of the government contracting pie. "Everyone wants a piece of this pie, because it is a magical pie that never runs out. Taxpayers just keep the pie full all of the time," noted one contracting insider.

The "Reverse Cronyism" effect has become so bad that the President of the Osceola County Chamber has had to step in a create another task force to help local vendors compete for these local contracts. While very few of the staff of WayneWho are fans of Mike "TaxBoy" Horner, we believe his efforts are fair and just. From a taxpayer's perspective, competition ensures not only quality and value, but also helps to remove ethical problems from the mix. For too long residents have questioned the decisions made by local governments on the basis of ethics. While we do not believe that the "Chamber" is the best choice for fairness considering stances on other issues, we do believe that they are on the right path. Maybe besides an educational task force we also need a contracting review board to verify the fair and equal awarding of contracts. This would also help more vendors understand what was considered in the awarding of contracts so they too could make adjustments, not contributions, to win future contracts.

The WayneWho staff would throw one note of caution to our readers. Much of the contracting discussion sounds more like discussion of the era of the "New Deal" where government created infrastructure projects and deficit spending to help during the Great Depression. While this may sound very tempting during these times of crisis, local officials will create more problems if these projects, like new cities, are undertaken only to unsure the survival of longtime business friends. Bankrupting our community is not the solution the taxpayers are asking for.